BUNTING.
BE LS V DDRTJTT \N . BRAS Vll YD, OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH.
COMMON HI NTING. CORN lil M l SG. B U N T I N G LARK.
Kmlh riza miliaria, PENNANT. MONTAGU. BEWICK.
Emderiza—. Miliaria—A bird that feeds on millet, milium—millet.
THE bird before us is a native of Europe and Asia; it is found in
the former, in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and southwards in
Germany, Greece, and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean;
and in the latter in Asia Minor.
The Bunting is a common bird in most, though not in all parts of
the kingdom, frequenting the cultivated districts, and these almost exclusively,
in Yorkshire, Shropshire, Sussex, Cornwall, Norfolk, Suffolk,
Lancashire, Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, and other counties;
in Wales also, and in various parts of Scotland—Dumfriesshire, Edinburghshire,
Caithnesshire, and Suthcrlandshire, as also in the Orkneys,
where it breeds; in the Hebrides and Shetland Islands. It is not,
however, invariably to be found in plenty in situations in which it
might be looked for in abundance, as in other similar ones, but is
somewhat capricious in the choice of its localities.
It is belie\cd to be in some degree migratory, and it is thought that
our flocks arc reinforced at the commencement of winter by others
from the Continent; partial movements, at all events, take place at
that season.
Though seen only in pairs in the spring and summer, these birds
associate in die autumn and winter months with others, both those of
their own, though not numerously, and those of other species, a community
of object producing a 'communism' of habit—an ornithological
• socialism,' which may be defended on the most abstract and most
practical principles of right. 'Corn-laws' and 'Protection' have no
place in their 'statute book;' 'free trade in corn' is the motto of